“You would absolutely love it there! They have all these baby elephants waddling around and you can take a ‘shower’ with the adult ones and really get close to these beautiful creatures, maybe even get close enough to touch their trunks.”
Amid a sea of hot drink orders and requests for a second casserole dish, I am being regaled by a fellow flight attendant named Lisa, to go with her and another friend, Fatima, on a two hour car drive from the hotel to the Elephant sanctuary in Colombo Sri Lanka where we will be spending a day as part of our layover for the flight.
She paints a very tempting picture of Pinnawala – the name of the pachyderm Shangri-La, which houses the largest amount of orphaned wild elephants in the world. I acquiesced to her quite happily, agreeing to meet up early in the morning to play amok these rescued wonders.
The first thing that hits you as you drive through Colombo is the sheer undulating wall of greenery. Hundreds of shades ranging from dark forest to the pale lime burrow deep into your retinas demanding your attention with their petulant pigments. This emerald shroud covers all parts of the Sri Lankan Capital, from the beauty and culture of its gregarious people to what we would discover to also be some of its darker and more misanthropic aspects.
Arriving at the spot where we believed we were going to view some these animals in their natural habitat and coo-and-aww over some orphaned elephants, we were gifted with our first sighting of these magnificent mammals right at the entrance, a large being of beauty with what at an initial glance seemed to host an interesting array of pale orange paint from the top of its head down to its trunk – what a delightful decoration idea!
It was only walking past it to the station where we had to pay the entrance that I noticed there was a thin chain wrapped around its neck and looped down to a cuff around its front right leg…the first ominous sign. The second was that the “paint” was the natural markings of the elephant’s skin where vitiligo had taken place and didn’t look like the mark of a healthy beast… the third sign greeted us at the front desk with a broad smile that seemed to stretch around his entire head.
The smiling man with oily hair received us with much enthusiasm and many hand shakings which he didn’t end before offering us three package deals:
“Pictures with washing the elephant in the river for 20 minutes.
Ride the Elephant and then pictures with washing the Elephant for 20 minutes.
Ride the Elephant for a longer time and then pictures washing the elephant, a 30-minute deal.”
At this stage Lisa and I exchanged looks. This didn’t seem to be something normally part of an elephant orphanage, right? And why was there only one elephant so far in what we thought was a sanctuary full of them? Fatima didn’t seem to have any misgivings on the matter and immediately wanted the second option.
The man gleefully bolted up and brought the elephant over to a raised platform to place a blanket on its back so we could sit comfortably on its back. Here I saw Lisa’s brow furrow and cross her arms while contempt rolled its way across her features as the man waited to assist us unto the elephant. She went on to claim she had wanted to spend time with the elephant and take a shower in the river with it, but she absolutely refused to ride him. The man looked at her with a confused frown and then along with Fatima looked at me expectantly.
Now I know what the right choice was; I had heard of other places like this; exploiting these beautiful creatures for monetary gain and how this industry was corrupt and had no regard for the elephant’s backs and mental health. The virtuous choice was obvious – go with Lisa and not ride the elephant.
I did not make the virtuous obvious choice.
I tried justifying it to myself; Fatima wanted me there so she could feel properly secured and not fall off the elephant, the money I was giving them did go towards helping feed and take care of the elephant, and just maybe this ride was still taking us to the fabled sanctuary where the other elephants would be and I would be so-so-so careful not to put my full weight on this animal…
…but at the end of the day I also just really wanted to get on top of that behemoth. I wanted to ride on something far bigger than anything I had ridden before and on a creature that displayed an unnerving amount of human emotion and personality and so I gave into that pre-historic urge that says “I conquered something larger than myself”.
Afterwards, I felt dirty and awful that I did it for what basically amounts to at the end of the day as an ego trip. It was high up, the texture was far different from what I ever imagined (elephants are actually hairy as hell, but it’s all small bristle hairs we don’t see until we are really close or literally on top of them) and yes at times it was exhilarating. We went down a steep ravine path to a clear water river area where the guides – who I noticed to my chagrin had brought along a long pole with a sharper point – instructed the elephant to sit down and let us slide off into the water with him where we were joined by a stiff-backed Lisa.
At this stage, I was forced to shatter any hopes that there would be other elephant sightings and that the one I had just slid off was to be the only around I would see that day. I also realised to my chagrin that I had no idea what to call the elephant, despite being on top of him for a good 15 minutes.
“What’s his name?” I enquired of the handler.
He gave a few pats on the ample bottom and replied, “This is Ranjiet, and he is 37 years old.”
The three of us spent the next few minutes covering Ranjiet in the slow-moving river water and using pieces of worn down bark pieces from the nearby coconut trees to give him a good massage which he encouraged with lazy waves of his trunk as he occasionally splashed us with water. It did appease my guilt a little to give back to him like this, with a cool bath on a hot day along with some back scratches as a thank you gift, but in the end, I agree with Lisa; it was still exploitation and I shouldn’t have gone along with it.
But I did, and I’ll have to live with that decision and what it says about me. When the time came for the handlers asked us to climb back on him so we could ride him back to the original spot, I’d had enough and told them I didn’t fancy riding Ranjiet anymore, I’d prefer to walk next to him this time along with Lisa. Fatima chose to walk with us as well because without me there with her she claimed she would definitely fall off.
For my part, when I post on social media about Ranjiet (sans the elephant riding, I showed just the water bathing and spa treatment for his part) and people ask where they can go for the same experience when they visit Colombo I don’t give them the name of that Elephant riding place. I tell them of Pinnawala, which is where we were supposed to be heading to originally. This was somehow lost in translation with the hotel staff whom we organised the transport with.
I realised after we left and I looked back at the signs by the entrance that the name was for someplace different and the hotel had simply taken us to a place their friends ran, as they probably did anytime a foreign guest asked about anything elephant related, without actually listening to the specifics of what Lisa was asking for.
I won’t say the name of the elephant riding spot, as I can’t stomach the thought of promoting any more mistreatment on Ranjiet’s behalf, not after seeing a true and beautiful soul looking back right into my far lesser one. I also ask you the reader please, make sure you explain very clearly to any driver or hotel staff helping you get somewhere exactly what you are looking to do and what you are also looking not to do in Colombo. On their part, they don’t believe they were in the wrong and they honestly thought they were sending us somewhere we would be excited to visit that day.
But if you do ever get a chance, I highly recommend visiting Pinnawala. It’s quite something to have something more pure and humane than a human being looking back at you. You might prefer let it be love emanating from its gaze though, rather than contempt for you trying to attain mastery over it.
